Legends of the Industry

A family owned and operated business in downtown St. John's got an unexpected visit from a rock and roll superstar Rod Stewart — and that superstar got unexpectedly fitted for a sealskin coat.

U.K. musician Rod Stewart, who's in town to headline the Confederation Hill Music Festival July 11, Saturday night, stopped by Always in Vogue on Water Street.

He was accompanied by an entourage of backup dancers and musicians.

"It was just an ordinary morning and then one of the drivers, a local driver that takes the bands around, came into our store and he approached me and asked me if I would be interested in fitting the girls up for some warmer jackets, because it's colder here today and they hadn't travelled with any jackets or anything like that," says Darren Halloran of Always in Vogue.

Halloran agreed and soon received a call from Stewart's manager, who said the singer wanted to tag along for the fitting.

"He was nothing but a gentleman, very nice."

I explained to him that we make everything in house and showed him some of the stuff that we do, and we just had a nice chat. He was just like one of the guys."

Holloran said Stewart browsed through the store's selection of cloth, leather and shearling jackets.

"At the end of it, we did have them all fitted for sealskin jackets, that was my request, and they loved them," Halloran said. "But they decided with the warmth and playing [instruments], they decided to go with our cashmere capes so [the women are] all going to be wearing cashmere capes tonight."

The rocker stayed in the store for about 40 minutes and hand-picked the red cashmere capes himself. "It was almost like I met him before. There was no awkwardness," said Halloran.

"He had fun, the girls had fun. They were singing and dancing and trying stuff on — and he was trying stuff on and playing around. It was just a very nice atmosphere."

Halloran said he was delighted that Stewart was open-minded about seal products, given the abundance of misinformation about the industry.

"It was very positive and it made you feel very good about yourself, to have somebody with such stature as him put on one of our jackets."

He thinks Stewart may decide to purchase the capes for his team, given how popular they were among the women.

Halloran got another surprise when Stewart personally offered him six passes to the Confederation Hill concert.

"He's going to let me come back and meet him after the show. The girls are going to be there and they were all excited, they said to come back and get a picture with them after the show and see them," he said.

"They kind of treated me like I'd known them for a long time, so it was very comforting."

This created many anti-sealing activists using social media to attack on Rod Stewart's sealskin coat fitting..